Taxis Involved In 1 Out Of 4 Pedestrian Crashes In Chicago Loop

Chicago pedestrian injury lawyers, Zneimer & Zneimer noted an article in the Chicago Sun-Times that reports that according to Chicago Department of Transportation, more than 3,100 pedestrians were injured in downtown Chicago since 2005. Of those, more than 400 of those or about 13 percent suffered serious injuries or fatal injuries. Strikingly, one out of every four pedestrian crashes involved a taxi cab.

According to the same article, so far this year, there have been 31 pedestrian fatalities in Chicago.

The same article also noted that in the highest crash areas in downtown Chicago, more than half of the pedestrians were hit while walking in a crosswalk with the signal. In the central business areas of Chicago nearly 28% of the crashes involved taxi drivers.

In recognition of these statistics, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago City Council passed a law requiring that taxi driver to drive no more than 12 consecutive hours in a day.

Even with the surge in pedestrian fatalities this year in Chicago, the trend has been a steady decline in traffic fatalities in Chicago since 2002 when there were 69 pedestrian fatalities in Chicago. One major change that could account for this drop was the introduction of count down pedestrian walk lights. The count down lights are now in roughly 1,000 of the cities 3,000 intersections.

The Chicago injury law firm of Zneimer & Zneimer, P.C. handle many pedestrian injury cases. The most typical pedestrian crash cases we have seen are cause when drivers are making a left turn for the middle of the intersection. The driver in these cases is looking for on coming traffic. When they see no oncoming auto traffic, the driver accelerates and does not notice the pedestrians crossing the street in the crosswalk.